Tuesday, June 26, 2012

After “Expect the Unexpected” wrapped up, I had time to grab
an early dinner before I started preparing for my Saturday night game of Dungeon
Crawl Classics. Unfortunately, that meant I had to skip the Artists’
Panel scheduled right after “Expect the Unexpected.” I’d be kicking myself for
this a little later.

My belly filled and my scenario, pre-gens, and accoutrements
together, I slipped back to the Longhorn Room in time for the NTRPGCon Auction
and—more importantly—the announcement of the winner of the 2012 Three Castles Award. Regular readers already know I won in absentia last year for The Dungeon
Alphabet and was a co-nominee this year for Realms of Crawling Chaos
with Dan Proctor.

Unfortunately, I was tipped early that Realms was probably not
going to win when Doug asked me to present the award since I was in town.
Disappointing, but I expected my name in the mix again was unlikely to result
in another award.

Jim Ward runs Dragonlairds on Sunday morning

Doug and Mike introduced me prior to the auction and I
threatened the audience with reading the hour-long acceptance speech I wasn’t
able to deliver last year and got some laughs. I then pointed out that if I
neglected to announce this year’s winner, the award was technically still mine.
All laughter aside, it was an honor to finally be able to thank some of the
judges in attendance and those of you who’ve supported The Dungeon Alphabet with
your dollars and glowing reviews. It was with a mixture of pride and sadness
that I passed the torch on to Kevin Crawford for Stars Without Number.
Congratulations, Kevin!

Having already blown most of my budget (or so I told
myself), I slipped out after the award announcement and finished up the last
little details of preparing for my DCC session of “The Fane of St. Toad”
scheduled immediately after the auction concluded. I had my Brave Halfling Old School Game Box (the Erol
cover, natch, and now signed after “Emirikol”) stuffed to the gills with DCC
notes and was ready to roll.

Saturday night games at cons are always dicey (and not in
the good way). Exhaustion and drinks take their tolls and not everyone makes it
to the table. My game had seven players registered, but only three from the
list turned up. Luckily for me, I had three other eager players accost me
before the game and beg seats, which the low turnout allowed me to grant them.
Unlike “Emirikol,” whose players were largely unfamiliar with DCC, five of the
six players at “St. Toad” had copies of the rulebook with them and at least
passing acquaintance with the rules. After a quick rules overview, we hit the
ground running.

“The Fane of St. Toad” is the first full-length adventure I
wrote after getting involved with the OSR and it is dedicated to Dave Arneson.
I hadn’t looked at it since I started working on Stonehell, and I always get a
little nervous revisiting old work. Surprisingly, it still worked for me. I
updated it to DCC, smoothed out a couple of rough edges, and made some changes
so that it wouldn’t be completely predictable to someone who had read the
original. In my own opinion, it turned out great.

Those red words: all toads

The players spent very little time exploring the upper level
of the Fane (but enough time for them to soak up the ambiance), heading down
the Undercroft where they rightly concluded the good treasure was. Down there,
they encounter really, really crappy mummies (my Zocchis were again rolling
cold and I couldn’t strangle a poor sap to death to save my life), tore up a
creepy orgy chamber (and inadvertently discovered a cache of vials when they
struck off a particular protrusion from a statue), and then faced down a big
honking cavern of toads. The battle was pitched against the hopping menace, but
with a lot of spellburning and sleep spells, and charm spells, they overcame
the toads—but not before the halfling in the party found the “sleeping” avatar
of St. Toad and decided to battle it hobbito
a toado.

In an eerie repeat of “Emirikol,” the elf in the party
called down the power of his patron and the party was near indestructible for
many, many rounds and enjoyed a healthy bonus to their rolls to boot. I did
manage to get the cleric swallowed by the avatar, but out-of-the-box thinking with
a Word of Command (“vomit!”) got him out of its belly and the Toad was slain,
leaving the party very rich and the session at an end. Alas, I didn’t get to
sic the giant Toad idol on them as they tried to leave with their booty.

The Not-Be by Jennell Jaquays

During a break in “St. Toad” I ran into Tim again and he
started talking to me about something called a “Not-Be” and I honestly had no
clue what he was going on about. Finally, the penny dropped. A couple months
before the convention, Bad Mike sent the word out that the con was looking for
funky, unique monster submissions to present to the artists during the Artists’
Panel for them to draw. The end results would eventually be judged, featured in
an adventure, and the winner would have a miniature sculpted of the monster.
When I read the call for monsters, I drafted up a quick entry: “The
Upside-Down, Inside-Out Thing That Should Not Be” or “Not-Be” for short. It
turned out that Jennell Jaquays brought the “Not-Be” to grisly, two-dimensional
life at the Artists’ Panel and it was a big hit. And I missed the whole thing.

The rest of the evening, although late, was a lot of fun. I
talked up my upcoming releases from Goodman Games with the DCC players and
signed a few books before heading back to the ballroom. There I talked about
Stonehell with Bad Mike, editing with Tim, and got the lowdown on Jennell’s
next professional leap (and got to see the “Not-Be” for myself). The hour was
late and after collecting my winnings from the silent auction (Call
of Cthulhu 5.6.1 autographed by Sandy Petersen, Secret of San Fransico,
and Cthulhu
Dark Ages—what can I say? I love me some Call of Cthulhu and spent
less than I would have at the store), I called it a night.

Erol, a gorilla, and I wait for the shuttle to the airport

Sunday was all about saying hello and saying goodbye. Frank
Mentzer introduced me to Peter Kerestan of Palace of the Vampire Queen and Wee
Warriors fame. I had breakfast with Steve Winter and my favorite fan from Gary
Con, Zach Glazer (after chatting with Erol Otus and Jeff Dee while waiting for
my breakfast to arrive). Allan Grohe introduced me to Chris Holmes, son of J.
Eric Holmes, who turned out was one of my fellow cavemen in “Expect the
Unexpected” and we got to playtest Chris’ board game of “Pirates vs. Ninjas vs.
Zombies vs. Monkeys” (or something like that). The Ninjas won, but not before
proving that if you really want to playtest the beejezus out of a game, Allan
and I will put it through its paces.

There were of course many people I didn’t get to say
good-bye to or spend enough time talking to during the con, but hopefully 2013
will correct all that. I’m going to try like hell to make it down again next
year. Writing this close to three weeks after the events of the convention,
there are many events, people, and good conversations I’m forgetting, but I do
want to thank all my fellow attendees for welcoming this New Yorker down to
Texas. The fact that so many of you took the time to introduce yourself and
compliment me on my work (and demand autographs!) means a lot to me. For those
of you who don’t do it as a vocation, writing is an extremely lonely pursuit
and it’s usually just me vs. the computer screen. Getting out and meeting
people who my work has brought some entertainment to means the world to me and
so long as you keep wanting more, I’ll keep writing it.

Sunday, June 24, 2012

Saturday kicked down my door like a fighter with
18-double-aught STR and dragged me back into the sea of con attendees. After
surviving another go-around with the hotel restaurant for breakfast (I chose to
order food rather than sample from the worn-down looking buffet), it was back
to the Longhorn Room for a session with a surprise twist: “Expect the
Unexpected.”

I knew what the surprise was before going in, having had the
beans spilled to me by Doug the night before after I mentioned that I was going
to try to sneak into Frank Mentzer’s Boot Hill game. Boot Hill was one of
those titles that I always wanted to try, but my FLGS never seemed to carry a
copy of it back in the day. Having a chance to correct that gap in my gaming
experience with Frank at the helm was a welcome one. But, alas, there was a
catch.

“Expect the Unexpected” was a take on the premise from the
TV show “Quantum Leap.” Each participant would play at one table for a pre-determined
period, then “jump” to another table, picking up a PC left behind by the group
that just departed. The referees were all industry folks and the games a
peculiar, but entertaining lot. Jim Ward was running Metamorphosis Alpha,
Frank had Boot Hill, Jeff Dee was running Cavemaster, and Steve
Winter had brushed the dust off of Star Frontiers for the session. I
started in Jeff Dee’s Cavemaster game along with seven
other Neolithic wayfarers.

I mentioned Cavemaster earlier and how much I
was impressed with it. It’s even better with a group. Jeff gave us the plot: a
wandering band of cavemen and cavewomen traveling to meet up with our tribe at
our traditional nomadic hunting grounds. We were out of food and hoon-gry, which is bad news if you’re a
cavefolk. The party was comprised of “classes” one would expect in a
Paleolithic setting (hunters, gathers, warriors, shaman, and me, the smart
one), all of whom brought their own specialized talents to the game. The
gatherers found enough food for us to survive one day, but it was evident we
needed meat. Luckily for us, we soon found a quartet of peccaries drinking from
the river and it was on!

Neat mechanics aside, I had a better time trying to hunt
those four pigs than I’ve had looting a dragon’s lair. The players were all
getting into the caveman shtick (speaking in broken English, giving ourselves
names like “Healing Milk,” “Flame Hair,” “Deer Runner,” and “Fire Maker,” and
grunting and hooting whenever appropriate) and knowing that if we failed to get
enough meat to feed us all for a few days it would result in a long starvation or
the invention of cannibalism. The stakes felt much higher and therefore the fun
was increased. When we successfully brought down three of the four wild pigs,
it was if we had accomplished something important and tangible, something very
much unlike killing an orc and taking his copper pieces. We’d managed to dress
the pigs and start weaving baskets to carry all that glorious meat when it was
time to switch tables.

We found ourselves
aboard the Warden in Jim’s Metamorphosis Alpha game and he took
no time in presenting us with plenty of opportunities to kill ourselves. This
was the second time I’ve had a chance to play MA with Jim and I had a
massive karmic
debt to pay for last time. I was fully prepared to throw myself on the
proverbial (or more likely in Jim’s game, not-so-proverbial) grenade to save
the party. Unfortunately, due to the stipulations of “Expect the Unexpected,”
Jim could only banish the clumsy, stupid, and unlucky to the cryo-tubes—a fate
I somehow avoided once more without tossing my fellow PCs under the space bus.
I maintained my 100% survival rate in Jim Ward’s games and now hang up my
uniform and retire terrified, but undefeated. I’ll not miss the R
radiation-emitting space slugs that were the doom of so many others.

Next up it was off to Boot Hill and we found ourselves in—as
Frank stressed—the historical Old West. Most of us were unfamiliar with Boot
Hill, so Frank had to eat up a lot of time giving us the gist of the
mechanics, but we did manage to fight off some Indian raiders, equip some
armored wagons, and buy some dynamite for the next party to jump to the table
to have fun with. Frank later confided to me that the session we were playing
was inspired by “Star Wars” and just had the obvious serial numbers filed off.
In retrospect, it’s obvious, but also genius.

One last leap before our return to the world of Cavemaster
landed us in the bowels of an alien city—Star Frontiers time! Fending off
robots and Sathar, we worked our way through the crystalline underbelly of the
metropolis in search of missing scouts and really managed to screw ourselves up
when we drove into a claymore mine and blew up. But, as was quickly pointed
out, that wasn’t going to be our problem anymore in about ten minutes. My
apologies to the group that came back and found their PCs all banged up.

Star Frontiers was one of those games that I enjoyed in theory
when I was younger. The “Knight Hawks” expansion was one of my favorites, but
the alien races and default setting never did anything for me. Having
experienced it again and become re-acquainted with its simple d% resolution
system and skills, I’m tempted to hack it together with Traveller and a slew of
other sci-fi influences and give my own spin to it. File that under the “someday
campaign” list we referees keep.

At long last, we cavemen returned to our homeland to
discover ourselves in the middle of a pitched battle with cannibal,
armor-wearing Neanderthals (we missed the pterodactyl fight). Ultimately, we
defeated that enemy and rescued our fellow tribes-people from becoming supper,
and even managed to begin retro-engineering the concept of armor to make
ourselves invincible in the Neolithic world. “Expect the Unexpected” was a very, very fun
stretch of hours and I hope the experiment is repeated at future cons.

Saturday, June 23, 2012

Friday morning saw me up early, rising before most of my
fellow gamers emerged from their bedrolls, and the restaurant was just beginning
to serve breakfast. But first: a quest! Needing various sundries, I decided to
venture out to the gas station across the highway from the hotel. This stretch
of thoroughfare was under severe construction, littered with traffic cones,
mesh netting, concrete barriers, and thick, sticky mud. Traffic was a snarl
even at the early hour and the whole unsightly mess became known as “The
Highway Jim Ward Designed” for its sheer lethality. Dodging traffic and
acquiring a thick coating of Texas mud to my sandals (they’re still caked in
the stuff two weeks later), I managed to make it to the service station and
back with all my hit points and limbs intact.

After breakfast, I milled around with the early risers for
awhile, thinking I had time to kill. My first DCC session was supposedly
scheduled to begin at 10 AM and the website and gaming grid supported that
belief. Unfortunately, the convention program had it listed as starting at 8
AM, so I headed down to make the correction on the table sign in case anyone
showed up early. Imagine my surprise when I found the entire table filled with
players patiently waiting for me. OK, game on!

The scenario was “Emirikol Must Die!,” a stripped-down
version of “Emirikol Was Framed!” I rigged up just for Texas. I discarded a lot
of the backstory and set-up to get things rolling quickly, but soon learned I
should have stripped it down more. As it was, I had to throw out the entire middle
section of the adventure to get to the part where the PCs get a shot at the
Chaotic One. They did triumph over Emirikol, thanks largely to the intervention
of the elf’s patron, The Three Fates, who, thanks to a really great spellcheck,
made them nigh-invulnerable for several rounds and gave them a +5 to most of
their actions. Similar wise use of magic allowed the PCs to avoid a few of the
deadlier traps, but I did almost manage to kill one character with a magical
blueprint of death (buy the module when it comes out and see what I’m talking
about).

A note about my referee style: I’m not usually a
squat-behind-the-screen-and-roll kind of guy. I like standing and moving around
when I run a game. This session had me going all out, however. I used the
entire room to my benefit, peering over a divider to demonstrate a PC clinging
to a balcony, skulking along a wall to show a thief’s move quietly attempt,
squatting on a chair to emulate a pair of sleeping pterodactyls, and, in one
moment of showmanship, throwing myself onto the floor to recreate a disastrous
failed spellcheck roll. Something about this game had me on my best (or worst)
hamming it up behavior.

I did forget to get everyone’s names who participated in “Emirikol
Must Die!” A few are obvious (Erol Otus sat at my left hand during the game and
took up the challenge of a DCC RPG Wizard) and fellow blogger Robert Fisher and
his son were there as well. However, we had a few no-shows who were replaced by
walk-ins and I didn’t grab everyone’s real names during the game. Goodman Games
wants to credit you all as playtesters, so if you’re interested and are reading
this or your know someone who played in that game, please contact me with your
name either in the comments section or at the email addy over on the right.

After Emirikol died, I headed back to ballroom and chatted
with fellow con attendees. I think I dropped some more cash at the con store at
that time, picking up a secondhand copy of both Quag Keep and C.L. Moore’s “Northwest
Smith.” Allan Grohe and I talked preservation of materials with intrinsic
historic value (Black Blade has something very nifty in its possession and is
just waiting on contracts to announce it and release it into the wild. Thanks
for the early look, Allan). I’d see Allan a little later in Castle Greyhawk,
but I yet again managed to miss a single one of his Aliens games. Gary Con V for sure, I promise!

Finished hobnobbing, it was time for me to wander back to
the Longhorn Room for the impromptu “Gonzo Gaming” panel that was scheduled for
Tim Kask and I. The link to the video of that is here.
It was very nice to see some familiar faces in the crowd and I hope that Tim
and I managed to sum up what “gonzo gaming” means to us and not bore you too
much with war stories and off-beat ideas. Doing the panel with Tim was a lot of
fun and we’re already thinking of what the “Tim & Mike Show” might do for
Gary Con V.

The panel ended, allowing me an hour to grab dinner at the
hotel bar before heading off to explore Castle Greyhawk. Allan Grohe does a
great take on it, but I’ve learned that I really have problems facing 1E in an
evening session at a con. I ran into the same situation at Gary Con IV. Basic
D&D has become my game of choice and facing that wall of 1E modifiers and
classes is just too much for my frazzled mind to handle in the evening hours. Notice my glazed look in the picture to the right. I’ve
made a mental note of this and the next time I tackle 1E it will be the first
session of the day. Despite my difficulties, my bard survived (barely), but
those of us at the table agreed to never speak of the rust monster battle
again.

After Castle Greyhawk wound down, I hung around for a little
while longer, talking with Dough Rhea and Mike Badolato and other people
wandering around. I saw Matt Finch and wished his good luck on the morrow’s
Three Castle Award and finally got a chance to say hello to Tavis Allison. We
kept seeing each other around the con, but never had the opportunity to shake
hands and catch up. Tim Kask and I eventually wandered off to talk more about
Eldritch Enterprises and other non-gaming related stuff, but soon it was way
past the Witching Hour and I had to make my farewells for the evening before
climbing into bed and falling instantly asleep.

Next up: Travelling through time and space, the Not-Be, and
a whole lotta toads.

Friday, June 22, 2012

It’s been more than two weeks since NTRPGCon and I’ve yet to
chronicle my exploits in Bedford, TX. Partly to blame was the inevitable
post-con crash that afflicts most of us who spend four days in the company of
our far-flung comrades in dice bags only to return to the mundane daily grind,
but I also came home to find my internet connection on the fritz for a week and
that took the wind out of my sails. Enough time has passed to fill my
proverbial canvas anew, but that also means the following may be corrupted by
time and faulty memory. Take this all with a small pinch of salt.

Unlike my journey to Gary Con, the trip down to Texas was a
breeze. Once again, I got to fly in a turbo prop from Long Island down to
Philly before graduating to a real, honest-to-goodness jet plane. Some folks
might see that as a quaint means of travel, but with my love of the past, there’s
nothing like taking a ride through the skies and watching the props whirl just
outside the window. Plus, the guy sitting next to me had the largest carry-on
bag in history, so the flight attendant (although I think I can call her a “stewardess”
if the plane has propellers) moved me up to the front row in return for
promising I’d open the emergency hatch in case of a crash. That is assuming a
prop didn’t break free on impact and turn me into Wash in the closing half-hour
of Serenity.

From Philly it was a nice flight to Dallas-Fort Worth. The
young guy beside me, hailing originally from a formerly French-controlled
African nation and having the most unique accent I’ve ever heard, spent the
flight watching either that movie starring Real Navy SEALS™ or the longest
Armed Forces commercial in history (it’s the same thing, actually) with French
sub-titles. We arrived in Texas without trouble, but I learned that the
previous evening saw Biblical thunderstorms in D-FW and interrupted the travel
of fellow NTRPGCon attendees.

A brief wait (less than 15 minutes) had me in the Holiday
Inn shuttle and en route to the
hotel. Another con attendee was in the van with me, but was suffering through
his own version of my trip to Gary Con. He apologized for his surliness later
and now I must apologize because I can’t remember who that was. Sorry, brother.
Refresh my memory if you’re reading this.

At the hotel, I learned that since I was technically two
hours early for check-in, my reserved room with the rest of the con folks wasn’t
ready and would I mind another room on a different floor? Knowing my gaming
kin, “Yes, please.” So instead of being ensconced on the fifth floor, I had a
quiet little room on the second floor right by the stairs down to the lobby.
Again, after my room in Lake Geneva (literarily the farthest room possible from
the action of the convention), it was a godsend. And those stairs meant I could
avoid the elevator and work off some of the big Texas meals I figured I’d be
eating while in town (more on that later). Mike Badolato, one of the con’s
organizers wandered by as I was checking in, so I got to put names to faces
from minute one. He was just the first of many folks I’d get acquainted with
over the next four days.

With my bags safely stowed in my room, I wandered down to
the ballroom and grabbed my con badge. I ran into Allan Grohe manning the Black
Blade booth, saw a few other familiar faces from Gary Con, and got settled. The
area was quiet. Vendors had yet to arrive and most of the gaming tables were
vacant. I began to wonder if this whole North Texas thing was all hype, but then
learned that the Charity D&D game was underway down in the “Longhorn Room”
(what else would you expect in Texas?) and that’s where the masses were
gathered. Rather than join the crowd, I hung around the ballroom for awhile
chatting with the stragglers and new arrivals. Out in the common area beside
the lobby, Jeff Dee was setting up his display table and I introduced myself.
We chatted about his Kickstarter projects and Goodman Games for a bit before
Jeff kindly taught me how to play Cavemaster, his new Neolithic RPG.
Folks, Cavemaster would be one of the bright lights of the con for me
and I can’t recommend picking up a copy strongly enough. The whole premise (“it’s
an archeological recreation of the first RPG played by our caveman ancestors”)
and game mechanics (it uses rocks. Really, rocks.) are unmitigated genius if
you enjoy turning an off-beat concept into high art and unique but simple rule
resolution. I’d get a more in-depth crack at Cavemaster before the con
was over, but Jeff taught me the rules in less than three minutes.

The Charity Game finished not long after and who should I
run into by my Gary Con partner in crime and soon-to-be fellow panelist Tim
Kask. Tim and I caught up, talked shop, walked the parapet, and then, (and
there’s no way to write this that doesn’t sound sleazy) went back to his hotel
room so he could show me his Snakeriders. Tim and Frank Mentzer, his fellow
Eldritch Enterprises compadre and my
own convention buddy, were roommates for the con and Frank rolled in shortly
after. We chatted about upcoming EE projects (I’m eagerly awaiting “Spider
Bitch on the Rag,” although I’ve been told it will have another, more
commercial title when it hits the market) before they invited me to dinner at
the hotel restaurant. The three of us headed out to eat and encountered the
plague of NTRPGCon: the wait-staff (emphasis on “the wait”). The slow service
would become the running joke of the convention. It was obvious that the
Holiday Inn was not prepared for gamer appetites—or merely human ones—and I
suspect that this is the primary reason NTRPGCon V will be held at a new
location.

Dinner was mind-blowing, the highlight of the con for little
old me. Halfway through my burger, I realized that my table companions were Jennell
Jaquays, Frank Mentzer, Tim Kask, Jim Ward, and (briefly) Erol Otus. That song
from Sesame Street—“Some of these things belong together…”—started running
through my head, but everyone was very welcoming and encouraging and we had a
blast mocking Alien vs. Predator on
the restaurant TV. Nevertheless, it was a reminder that somewhere down the line
I had crossed a threshold and was now officially a game designer of very small
renown. Thank you all so very much for warm welcome.

When dinner wrapped up, Tim, Frank, and I hung out on the
patio and they told me secrets Man Should Not Know about the old days with Gary
and TSR. I don’t actively ask about the Old Days when I’m with those guys,
wanting to avoid being a rabid fanboy, but I’ve learned that just by hanging
around with them and letting them talk, I pick up a few interesting anecdotes
along the way. I’m like the Margaret Mead of the gaming industry. Luckily for
the guilty, I don’t always recall all the tales the next day, but the ones I do
remember are doosies. At last, the late hour and the flight caught up with me
and I managed to get to bed at a respectable hour—but not before dropping $40
on some old Judges Guild stuff from the con store. It would be the first of
several purchases I’d make before heading back to NY.

Saturday, June 16, 2012

Those of you who've had the chance to peruse the DCC RPG rulebook already know that it's filled with great art, some rendered by industry titans and other pieces by the up-and-comers of tomorrow. Now, you have the chance to own a few of the originals.

Doug Kovacs, who painted all the game's covers and designed the amazing module maps that appear within, has placed some of his work up for sale on his website. A few have already been sold, but if you're a fan of Doug's work like I am, here's you chance to snag a piece (or three) for your gaming room/man-cave/boudouir/etc. With convention season gearing up, Doug's bound to sell these fast, so those of you looking for a piece of RPG history should act with alacrity.

Thursday, June 14, 2012

For those of you who were not able to attend, video from NTRPGCon is now up on YouTube. Below is the panel on "Gonzo Gaming" that Tim Kask and I presented on Friday. The first clip overlaps with Dave "Zeb" Cook and Steve Winter talking about 2E. Tim and I take the table around the 25:00 mark and continue through into the next clip.
Doing this was a blast and it was with great pride and joy that a few familiar faces sat in to watch the shenanigans. I hope everyone walked out with a few ideas on how to "gonzo" up their campaigns.

Tuesday, June 5, 2012

Well, not just yet, but this will be the last evening I'm online until Monday. See you all soon (some of you sooner than others)! Looks to be a great weekend of gaming, hobnobbing, and shilling. Be back with pictures next week.

Who's to Blame

Despite having never been a professional adventurer, Michael Curtis has nonetheless deciphered cryptic writings, handled ancient maps and texts, ridden both a camel and an elephant, fallen off a mountain, participated in a mystical rite, and discovered the resting places of lost treasures. He can be contacted at poleandrope @ gmaildotcom